Structure evolution of the interfacial layer of BaTiO₃ thin films during annealing process and related good resistive switching behaviors

BaTiO₃ thin films with different annealing times were grown on LSMO/STO (001) substrates by pulsed laser deposition. An interesting phenomenon of loss-and-reappearance of the interfacial layer in BaTiO₃ was detected in the x-ray diffraction results, and the ordered-unordered-ordered lattice transformation caused by oxygen vacancies’ filling was thought to be the reason. The ferroelectric domain was also confirmed to form during such an annealing process according to the piezoresponse force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and phase-field simulation. A Ti-displacement-rotation region considered an intermediate structure during the domain formation was observed at the interfacial layer of the 5.5-min-annealing film. Because of the oxygen deficiency and the effect of ferroelectric domain modulation of the built-in barrier height, a good memristive behavior with a resistive switching ratio of 1916 was obtained in the 10-min-annealing BaTiO₃ (BTO) film, offering an avenue toward the application of oxygen-deficient BTO in neural network applications.